Educational Apocalypse

Time of India

6 days ago

Quixotic policies and political one-upmanship are derailing the future of an entire generation
Fair is foul and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air.'
If the Bard were to write in the milieu of modern-day Kerala, he would have certainly repurposed this famous phrase—uttered by the witches in Macbeth—to conjure up the political debauchery, deceit and ineptitude that plague the state's public education scene.
A seemingly bellicose education minister, V Sivankutty, and a pompously self-righteous higher education minister, R Bindu, have reduced the school and higher education sectors into political laboratories, where they conduct reckless experiments with arrogance and incompetence, forcing students to avoid public education institutions.
Like her predecessor K T Jaleel in the previous LDF govt, minister Bindu has developed a strong notion of mistaking law and lawmakers as one and the same.
If Jaleel courted controversy by toppling the university examination system to offer 'justice' to an engineering student, Dr Bindu found nothing wrong in changing the engineering entrance prospectus arbitrarily in an attempt to ensure 'justice' to a section of students who had been failed by the very policies of her own govt.
She publicly insinuated that her sense of justice was somehow superior to that of the high court, which struck down the last-minute changes.
The loss of marks—up to 40 in some cases—for state board students in the entrance ranking is a fact. Genuine complaints have been raised over the past five years. But how did a formula introduced by the govt in 2011 to level the playing field in engineering admissions backfire?
The answer lies in the inflated results of the state higher secondary board, especially in the post-Covid era. When the state govt focused more on 'feel-good' factors as on many other fronts, Sivankutty excelled in the experiment by notoriously liberalizing higher secondary exam evaluations.
The figures say it all. The number of students scoring full A+ in all subjects skyrocketed to 48,383 in 2021, up from 18,510 the year before. This plummeted to 28,450 in 2022, then slowly climbed to 33,815 in 2023 and 39,242 in 2024, before dipping to 30,145 in 2025.
The fact that only 14,244 candidates scored full A+ in 2019 explains what went wrong.
When the standard deviation is calculated considering the overall performance of students across boards, the high marks of state board students are bound to suffer a drastic cut.
'For standardization, marks obtained by students over multiple years are considered,' said a former commissioner of entrance examinations, requesting anonymity. He said the new method proposed by the govt to replace the 2011 formula may also prove ineffective over time. Since the new system would plug mark losses, it may actually prompt the govt to continue liberal valuation. If CBSE too adopts a similar approach, it could jeopardize the edge the govt plans to create for the state board students.
What's urgently needed, he said, is a competent committee to study the issue and develop a fair mechanism for all meritorious students, across the boards. 'If we don't treat the root cause, the disease will resurface in new forms,' he added.
Academic and scientist Achuthsankar S Nair, who was on the panel that devised the original formula in 2011, said the formula is scientifically sound and the grievances are genuine—at least for meritorious state board students.
'Serious fluctuations in parameters over the years may have turned the standardization process into a bane for some,' he said. If the sole aim is justice, then using only entrance exam marks might be an option. But if the goal is to level the playing field, the govt may have to give extra weightage to underprivileged sections, without hurting others. Experts agree: A solution to this complex issue is likely to be just as complex.
If the entrance exam conundrum requires a more scientific temper and constant monitoring, the plight of higher education in arts and science colleges in the state has almost reached a point beyond redemption.
The fight between the governor (who is also the chancellor of state universities) and the state govt over supremacy in university affairs has failed the student community. There is no permanent vice chancellor in 12 state universities. At least 40% of PG and 30% of UG seats remained vacant last year—a figure likely to worsen this year.
'The higher education sector in Kerala could collapse entirely within the next five years,' said former Kerala University pro-vice chancellor and writer J Prabhash. 'Courses that were once in high demand now have no takers. Academic activity is no longer a priority on campuses.'
As student mobility and exposure to better opportunities increase, the young generation is looking elsewhere. Our society has lost faith in our public sector institutions, he said, noting that Kerala has failed to establish even a single institution of academic excellence.
While the tussle between the governor and the higher education department has given a political opportunity to CPM and Sangh Parivar to engage in a public showdown, the entrance fiasco, which disadvantaged state board students, has already put a break on the migration of CBSE students to the state board for Plus Two studies.
The declining intake in govt and aided schools has also ripped apart the govt's claim that public schools are on a path of revival in the state.
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